Feed budgeting – Full hand-feeding sheep

Sue Street Senior Land Services Officer – Livestock

With so many producers hand feeding and a run of little to no harvest in grain and forage growing regions, hay and grain is difficult to obtain.

If you are feeding or plan to feed it is important to know how much feed your livestock will need, how much feed you will need to buy and how long you can keep feeding given your current feed on hand. This article will help you to create a feed budget for a full hand feeding situation.

Doing a feed budget is a great way to understand the amount of feed that needs to be fed during a certain period of time. It also allows you to check your nutritional understanding per class of stock. However doing a feed budget can be a daunting task. The following points/questions are a great start at understanding what information you may need before embarking on feed budgeting.

• What condition are your livestock in (current and future targets)?
• Class of livestock (cattle, sheep, dry, pregnant, twin bearing etc.)What do you want to do with your livestock? Sell, Keep?
• If selling, what market specs are you trying to reach?
• What are the feed intakes of the stock that I currently have?
• Number of stock to be fed?
• Can I meet their protein, energy, fibre and mineral requirements?
• How much feed do I have on hand?
• How much feed do I potentially have to buy?
• Have I done a feed budget to get me through until I make my next management decision? (i.e. feeding ewes until weaning and/or feeding lambs to a saleable weight, growth of native pasture etc.)
• Am I full hand feeding or supplement feeding?
• What infrastructure is needed to feed out on farm? Can I store feed?
• Financial aspects – what can I afford? What are my current financial reserves?
• Can I continue to keep my animals in a saleable condition?
• Am I mentally prepared for this decision?

Nutrient requirements

Most values given for feed requirements are based on a dry medium-framed Merino of 50kg mature weight in good condition with no fleece. This is commonly referred to as the sheep’s standard reference weight (SRW). If sheep are of a different frame size or condition, their requirements will need to be adjusted. It is important to remember that the energy requirements of sheep will also vary with the feed quality they are eating, the amount of walking they are doing to find the feed, their current status of nutrition, and for ewes, whether they are dry, pregnant or lactating.

As we all know, a pregnant and lactating animal requires more energy and protein compared to a dry animal. In the table below (Table 1.1) you can see the energy and protein requirements for a 50kg sheep (SRW) at different stages of reproduction.

Table 1.1 Nutritional requirements for a 50kg sheep

(Source: NSW DPI Drought Feeding Calculator and Sue Street Central West Local Land ServicesS)

*The table above is a guide only. Do regular condition scoring of the flock to determine if the feeding rates are adequate for their needs. Sheep that do not produce wool have a 2–3% lower requirement to maintain the same weight.

Ration formulation

Ration formulation is simply a matter of matching the nutrient requirements of the sheep with nutrients supplied in available feeds. For example; in a ration to maintain adult sheep during a dry season in a confined area, energy is the most important, and the most limiting nutrient. So, the energy requirement is the first thing to calculate.

The energy required for an adult single bearing ewe in late pregnancy to maintain weight at 50 kg (CS 3) is 14 MJ ME kg/DM. If the feeds available are oaten hay and wheat, then how much of each feed should be given? Adult sheep need at least 20 per cent roughage in their ration during late pregnancy, as this is important for the production of milk fat.

Standard reference weight: 50kg

Energy requirements: single bearing ewe late pregnancy: 14 MJME kg/DM

Feed:

80% wheat                                                          20% oaten hay

DM 90%                                                               DM 91%

ME 13.0                                                                ME 9.3

Crude Protein 12.0%                                           Crude Protein 7.2

This ration is in excess of the protein requirement of the 8% CP for late pregnancy. But this is ok as it may be financially viable to use feeds with a better balance between energy and protein (see NSW DPI Managing and preparing for drought 2018 pp. 44 -45).

Example feed budget

Below is a feed budget for feeding a dry ewe (Table 1.2) compared to feeding a pregnant/lactating ewe (Table 1.3). All ewe rations were analysed using the NSW DPI Drought Feed calculator.

1000 x Merino ewes at 50kg standard reference weight

Fed for 240 days (approximate time from joining through to weaning)

Grain - wheat

• $450^* a tonne without freight
• Dry matter (%) = 90
• Energy (MJ/kg DM) = 13.0
• Crude Protein (%) = 12.0

Oaten Hay

• $350^* a tonne without freight
• Dry matter (%) = 91.0
• Energy (MJ/kg DM) = 9.3
• Crude Protein (%) = 7.2

^*Note – feed costs are estimates only and are subject to change based on availability, location and feed type

Table 1.2 Basic economics of full hand feeding a dry ewe for 240 days on only a wheat grain diet

Table 1.3 Basic economics of full hand feeding 1000 ewes pregnant with 30% twins and 70% singles on a grain only (Day 0-110) and a mixed ration of 80% grain and 20% hay (Day 110-240)

* Please note that both feed budgets (Table 1.2 and 1.3) do not take feed wastage and ‘cold snaps’ into account. Thereby these will need to be included in any feed budget.